Everyone wants control over their own life, but to accomplish most things in life, people have to work together. How they decide what and how is the definition of politics. I consider each such group a separate government. How that particular government is organized, who decides and how the others hold that decider responsible, is the fine grain of freedom or tyranny, and differs in each case.
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Friday, October 19, 2007

As noted in the comments on my last post it has been a while since I have added to that last post. It has not been do to inactivity, but rather a quest to keep it relevant and important. If I filled the blog with the chaff about Senator Craig's stalling, or each additional needle of GOP corruption in what has become a planetary body of such needles, the better points I could make would be lost among the lesser ones. And besides, I usually make those comments at the site of the news;-)

But Tom Cat was wondering what happened and perhaps others are too, so what started out as a personal response became enough to make it relevant to anyone who might be wondering, and a good place to plea for help in the Good Fight. So this was the letter:

Hi Tom,I am driven far more by the need to post information I have discovered etc, than the need to discover something to post, That tends to make my blog a bit more pithy but probably less regular than is ideal. I have added a couple of links to my "Basic reading/listening for literacy" list since I wrote about the Gapminder project, but no great revelations that would not be a rehash of previously covered info.

If you Google "Freedem", or occasionally "Freedemm" you will see quite a splash across the web with most of it me, with quite a bit of rehashing, particularly about the Gapminder project of late, in an effort to make actual reality most folks default reality. While I recognize that anyone can have a POV spin, or emphasis based on personal ego or agenda, I really do think that actual reality that is beyond such ego is the only sane basis for discussion, and the only glue that keeps a civilization from disaster.

On the ego, POV, agenda, front a Googling of "Gang Of Pirates" might produce nearly the same list as "freedem", though I would have hoped that would have become more general by now. Much that has been written has focused on Bush, even when it is not him personally at issue, and will be a major issue if he is there or not. By focusing on the GOP and even separating them as not exactly synonymous with Republicans, a whole group of good things happen.

The first is that there is an accurate and descriptive name of a group of folks and ideology that gets great power from not having a name, as only by naming them can they be opposed. By calling themselves Conservatives they cloak themselves in legitimacy they do not deserve, and as pointed out by Orwell, further destroy the language that can define opposition.

The second point is to steal the Initials. The grand ole party meme was based on the delegitimized Democrats as the party of Southern Bigotry and Treason. As all those folk are now Republicans, it is they who have lost legitimacy. If Gang Of Pirates is used enough (with the "Of" capitalized) and with GOP used after referring to the original "Gang Of Pirates" used earlier, then that can become the default thought for all those cases where only the Initials are used, do it enough and even Faux Noise will find that translation in their head every time they use it.

Thirdly it provides a common focus and target for the entire coalition, even though many members would claim to be different, and indeed in fine detail there are some competing agendas. An Atheist Libertarian may well seem to be opposed to a Dominionist Theocrat, and even claim to be a polar opposite, but when the votes are counted for destroying the Commons and disabling the government from helping actual people, while supporting Corporate Welfare, they are both on the same side of treason and kleptocracy, and thus GOP. (though the Gang has many more members beyond those two: Neocon, Plutocrat, Fascist, Skinhead, etc)

Fourth, it fully describes the common ideology and authoritarian mindset. As noted inGeneration of Monsters the RWA pathology grants the father figure authority without accountability (often stemming from child abuse when that was the apparent fact) and the Pirate description, like the drunken child abuser description, removes the childhood feeling that their inadequacy was somehow responsible for the abuse, and places the blame and anger (and hopefully eventually justice) where it truly belongs.

On a parallel path I have been fighting to put Secular back where it belongs, and take it back from those who would destroy it meaning to further their agenda. As you can see noted in several posts around the web Secular is not Atheist, but rather having no connection to any idea of religion.

Rather Secular Government is like a Chess game, everyone gets the same set of pieces with the same rules. Religion may inform your decisions. You might even sacrifice a chicken to victory, if you believe it will help, just not in a time or location to disrupt those without your beliefs. And just because you are arrogant enough to believe you have found absolute truth, and even if they are called Bishops, you cannot give them any extra powers like teleportation, or invincibility, you have to play by the same rules as everyone else. That is sandbox 101.

1 comment:

I tend to suffer from the opposite problem. As I do my daily research, I come across much more that I want to post than I reasonably can. The issue then becomes one of winnowing.

I agree that the problem in our nation both precedes and transcends Bush, but he does personify the neocon/theocon corporatocracy our nation is becoming and you have to admit, he's a great lightning rod. Of late, I've been using Bush and GOP together.

I also agree with your concept of secular. Although I am myself a Christian (neither fundamentalist nor theocon), I strongly support the establishment clause and believe that government is no place for the imposition of piety codes.

The other is Good. It is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility,kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion and faith."

The grandson thought about it for a minute and then asked his grandfather:

"Which wolf wins?"

The old Cherokee simply replied, "The one you feed."

from an old tale.

The Golden Rule“That which is hateful to you do not do to another ... the rest (of the Torah) is all commentary, now go study.”

- Rabbi Hillel

Libertarians

1.

The self made man just isn't admitting how or where he came by all those parts

---FreeDem---- Aug 2005

2.

If a man tells you that the Government cannot accomplish anything of value, then voting for him would be like hiring an Amish Auto Mechanic.If they don't believe in the concept, they are more than likely to do a very poor job of it.

---Bob Danforth Sept. 2009

3.

Republicans never meant to cut government waste, fraud and graft, from the get-go their plan was to organize, monopolize and privatize waste, fraud and graft.

They see the civil service as meddling “middleman,” who interfered with the free flow of cash from taxpayers into corporate coffers. Their intent was to eliminate the “middleman” as an obstruction to corruption.

---Unknown rabblerowser Feb 2007

Patriotism:

No one can terrorize a whole nation, unless we are all his accomplices.

Edward R. Murrow

In the beginning of a change, the patriot is a scarce man, brave, hated and scorned. When his cause succeeds, however, the timid join him, for then it costs nothing to be a patriot

Mark Twain

Leadership:

You see, we often get noncreative leaders, people most interested in preserving their own positions. They flock around centers of power. Such centers attract people who can be corrupted. That is a more descriptive observation than to say simply that power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

If you are corruptible and your imagination is confined to worries about loss of power, you exist in a self-destructive system. Eventually, as all life does, you must encounter something you did not anticipate, and if you have not strengthened your creative resources, you will have no new ways for adapting to change. Adapt or die, that's the first rule of survival.

The limited vision of noncreative people is not difficult to understand. Creativity frightens the unimaginative. They don't know what's happening. Things new and unexpected arise from creativity. This threatens "things as they are." And (terrible thought) it undermines illusions of omnipotence.

Frank

Herbert 1984 (the year not the book)

News:

"News is what powerful people want to keep hidden; everything else is just publicity."

....Bill Moyer

Religion:

1.

Just as having only a hammer makes every problem either look like a nail, or as something irrelevant, our very technological skills have had us look there for explanations and ignore reality it cannot deal with. With our powerful hammer, we seek only nails, and dump the rest as dross. Not all questions involve hammers, not all answers are nails.

-- Freedem---Nov., 2006

2.

My issue with Atheists is not that they have no God, there are many religions that have no God, but that they have no religion.

-- Freedem---Nov., 2006

__Note: by this I mean that there are many things religions do besides the discredited "science" and self serving promises (give me your money and God will hold and pay the note), many like charity or fellowship, even social accountability can be very good things not requiring a God.

3.

Many have been very disappointed that their "God-critter" was not to be found as a technology swimming about in the shallower pools of knowledge. So in the obsession basic to our culture, we search ever deeper and more difficult pools, and always the "God-critter" seems to wink at us from the pool just beyond.

In the process we have found technologies beyond the wildest dreams of our most sophisticated ancestors. The great joke is that the "critter" never existed except as the pools themselves.

----Freedem --- Oct 2006

4.

Indeed I do think that many folk, believe all kinds of stuff from the actually true, to the utterly illogical, with no personal discernment one from the others. But that would hardly make any of them a scholar to rely on, any more that one should get their theology studies from a door to door salesman, offering "get out of hell free" cards, on special because the creator of galaxies in greater numbers than beach sand, nonetheless has an ego so weak He cannot exist without shamelessly excessive psychophancy from a major portion of the inhabitants of this particular dust speck.